nhawi

panorama of maunganui beach

well summer has just rolled on and on in NZ, we have been doing a house sit at a place called papamoa beach, near tauranga, south of auckland, and its just been magnificent – i have managed to have a swim nearly every day of our couple of weeks here.

we have been looking after 2 dogs and 2 cats for dave & estelle in their lovely house just one block back from papamoa beach while they are in the UK for a couple of weeks. rush is a border collie, honey a greyhound cross, paddy and fern the two tabby cats.

we havent really got up to anything all that amazing, just enjoying the coastal lifestyle, lots of walks with the dogs, swims, nice meals out down the road in Mt Maunganui and lazing around at home.

we have really enjoyed hanging out in Mt Maunganui, which is only about 10 minutes down the road, the extinct volcano makes an impressive backdrop to the landscape, there are lots of walks and little beaches and islands, and the main strip has great cafes and restaurants along it.

its been very relaxing and its an incredibly friendly place, everyone, all ages, are very chatty and happy – you cant walk along the beach without people saying hello. its interesting because we always say one of the things we love about home is that its such a friendly place and we think of it as being unique in that regard – but the peeps of papamoa was at least as friendly.

we have also been planning the next steps in our gap year, we have decided to leave NZ in early may, so we have a couple more weeks at a new house sit on the other side of tauranga, then we go back to piha for a couple of nights in the bach, then 5 days in a house sit in auckland.

we will sell our car while in auckland and then on the 10th of may we fly out to istanbul to start the next leg of our adventure.

kai has more photos and his take on this housesit on his blog, just click on the link to the right.